FOR SALE

09.25.11

Early Marilyn Photos to Hit Auction Block

Joseph Jasgur / AP Photo

Everyone still wants a piece of Marilyn. Early photos of the screen star—from the days when she was still named Norma Jeane Dougherty—will soon be going on the auction block in order to settle the debts of the photographer who took the shots. Joseph Jasgur photographed Monroe in 1946, and the copyrights to the images, which show Monroe in a beret and striped bikini on the beach, have been the subject of court battles for decades. "These are probably the most significant images of Marilyn that are available because they're so early, from the first part of her career," said the chief of Julien's Auctions, which will sell the photos in December.